1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a hinge to be used to allow a furniture door to swing open and closed. More particularly, it relates to a hinge comprising a plurality of movable arms and a safety shield plate unit adapted to prevent part of the clothes or a finger of the user that is inadvertently put into the hazardous space with a variable volume defined by the moving arms of the hinge from being damaged or, in the worst case, cut by the moving arms.
2. Prior Art
There are known hinges designed to prevent part of the clothes or a finger of the user that is inadvertently put into the hazardous space with a variable volume defined by the moving arms of the hinge from being damaged.
FIGS. 14 through 16 of the accompanying drawings schematically illustrate a known hinge of the type under consideration (Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 5-2287). It comprises a fixing member 1 to be rigidly fitted to the inside surface of an anchor plate A, which may be a lateral plate of the main body of a piece of furniture, a cup-shaped fixing member 2 to be rigidly fitted to the inner surface of a movable plate B, which may be the door of the piece of furniture, and engaged with the fixing member 1 and four movable arms including a movable link arm 3, a movable rear arm 4, an movable intermediary arm 5 and a movable front arm 6.
The movable link arm 3 and the movable rear arm 4 are arranged respectively to pivot on a fixed front shaft 1a and a fixed rear shaft 1b and the movable rear arm 4 pivots on an intermediary rear shaft 5b arranged at the (intermediary) rear end 5a of the movable intermediary arm 5.
Additionally, said movable intermediary arm 5 pivots at the (intermediary) front end 5c thereof on an intermediary cup-side shaft 5d located inside the cup-shaped space 2a of said cup-shaped fixing member 2 and hence close to said fixing member 1 so that said movable link arm 3 and the movable intermediary arm 5 are linked together at respective middle parts thereof by means of an intermediary shaft 3e.
Furthermore, linking front shaft 3b at the (linking) front end 3a of said movable link arm 3 and cup-side shaft 6a located near the outside in said cup-shaped space 2a of said cup-shaped fixing member 2 are linked together by the movable front shaft 6.
With the above described arrangement, the movable plate B is fitted to the fixed plate A and apt to swing open by 90 to 180 degrees relative to the furniture main body and then closed as seen from FIGS. 14, 15 and 16.
Thus, with a hinge having a configuration as described above, no space is produced by the fixed plate 1, the cup-shaped fixing member 2, the movable link arm 3, the movable rear arm 4, the movable intermediary arm 5 and the movable front arm 6 when the movable plate B is closed as shown in FIG. 14. However, there will be produced not only space S1 defined by the fixing member 1, the movable rear arm 4, the movable intermediary arm 5 and the movable link arm 3 and but also relatively large hazardous space S2 defined by the cup-shaped fixing member 2, the movable intermediary arm 5, the movable link arm 3 and the Movable front arm 6 as the movable plate B is moved to its open position along arrow OP in FIG. 15.
Then, as pointed out above, part of the clothes or a finger of the user can be inadvertently put into the space S1 and/or the hazardous space S1 having a variable volume to become damaged. In order to avoid such an accident, a hinge cover C comprising a cover main body C1 and a movable cover member C2 fitted to the cover main body so as to pivot on pivot pin P is fitted typically to the movable intermediary arm 5 so that the space Si and the hazardous space S2 may be hidden by the cover main body C1.
Then, as the member plate B is swung open along arrow OP from the position in FIG. 14 to the position in FIG. 15, the movable cover member C2 is driven to rotate and extend from the cover main body C1 because the front end of flexible link belt C3 extending from the movable cover member C2 is fitted at the front end thereof to the movable front arm 6. As a result, the growing hazardous space S2 is hidden by the movable cover member C2.
However, since the distance by which the movable cover member C2 can extend from the cover main body C1 is limited by the dimensions of the latter, the hazardous space S2 can become exposed to a considerable extent when the movable plate B is moved to its open position as shown in FIG. 15. Additionally, when the movable plate B is opened by 90 degrees relative to the fixed plate A as shown in FIG. 16, the hazardous space S2 is mostly exposed although its size is reduced slightly.